IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States
of AmericaWhen in the Course of human events, it becomes
necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands
which have connected them with another, and to assume
among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal
station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God
entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind
requires that they should declare the causes which impel
them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to
secure these rights, Governments are instituted among
Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People
to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing
its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely
to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed,
will dictate that Governments long established should
not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly
all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed
to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right
themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are
accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,
pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design
to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their
right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government,
and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such
has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and
such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter
their former Systems of Government. The history of the
present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated
injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object
the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.
To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and
necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate
and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation
till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended,
he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation
of large districts of people, unless those people would
relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature,
a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants
only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual,
uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their
public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them
into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for
opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights
of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions,
to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative
powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the
People at large for their exercise; the State remaining
in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion
from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States;
for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization
of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their
migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new
Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing
his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the
tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of
their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither
swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out
their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies
without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and
superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction
foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our
laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for
any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants
of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial
by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended
offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring
Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government,
and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once
an example and fit instrument for introducing the same
absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable
Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves
invested with power to legislate for us in all cases
whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of
his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our
towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign
Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation
and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy
scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally
unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on
the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to
become the executioners of their friends and Brethren,
or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has
endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers,
the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare,
is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes
and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned
for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions
have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince
whose character is thus marked by every act which may
define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish
brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts
by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction
over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of
our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed
to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have
conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow
these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt
our connections and correspondence. They too have been
deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We
must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces
our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of
mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States
of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing
to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of
our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of
the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and
declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right
ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are
Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and
that all political connection between them and the State
of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved;
and that as Free and Independent States, they have full
Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances,
establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things
which Independent States may of right do. And for the
support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on
the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge
to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred
Honor.
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
|
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
|
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
|
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean |
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark |
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton |
